Stacy Grice, Stephanie Flores-Koulish, Ph.D.
Exploratory Professional Development to Integrate Minecraft: Education Edition in the Classroom
This project is a professional development proposal. The goal of this professional
development plan is to motivate a group of teachers in my school (Chadwick Elementary
School) to work along with me as we use Minecraft: Education Edition (M:EE) to enrich
our students’ learning experiences in reading, math, and science. The teachers and
students at Chadwick Elementary are constantly striving to develop and extend 21st
century skills. It is our mission to utilize innovative learning tools that support
and enrich our rigorous lessons while at the same time providing the students with
a creative outlet from which they can demonstrate their individuality. Student choice
and individualized learning plans are goals that can be achieved at Chadwick Elementary
School. Minecraft Education Edition is one of the tools that can help us achieve those
goals.
The Professional Development Plan that I created is meant to gradually increase teacher
participation in the school. Not one teacher at Chadwick is proficient with M:EE (including
myself), so I decided to introduce M:EE first to a smaller focus group of teachers
interested in trying something new in the classroom. This group will collaborate on
tasks as they explore the possibilities of utilizing M:EE in the classroom. Once the
focus group has had some experience, I will use their help to diffuse the innovation
to the remainder of the school. This Professional Development Plan leads the teachers
at my school to come together as a community of learners. Fostering Communities of
Learners (FCL) is a constructivist teaching model that emphasizes democratic, student-centred,
and inquiry-based instruction “oriented toward the development of higher-order understanding
by means of complex, authentic tasks, collaborative scientific research, and reciprocal
teaching” ( Shulman & Sherin, 2004). Though I have altered this model to fit the needs
of the teachers at my school, it serves as a basis for my professional development
plan. Within my plan, the teachers will work together to create meaningful classroom
tasks using M:EE. We will explore the many useful features of the program, and, together,
we will find the best way to meet the needs of our students.